Notre Dame's Creative Grit

By Jason Gay - October 28, 2012, 9:21 p.m. ET

The temperature had dipped into the high 30s, and a hostile stadium, wild just moments before, had sunk in a low hum of dread. Notre Dame led Oklahoma 23-13, and the Irish were charging toward another score.

Notre Dame quarterback Everett Golson loved this kind of quiet. To Golson, it was thrilling to enter an unfriendly place and shut down all that antagonistic energy, that skepticism, that predictable doubt that seemed to always meet the modern Fighting Irish. A hush in Oklahoma felt like a validation. "That's the way I like it," Golson said later, not trying to hide his smile.